Christians and Conspiracy Theories: Discernment or Distraction?

Let’s acknowledge that there are unscrupulous people who, under the guise of "biblical discernment," engage in unbrotherly criticism. Their tactics often include innuendo, character assassination, guilt by association, and other dishonest methods. They weave conspiracy theories, sensationalize their attacks against others, and favor personal slurs over substantive doctrinal analysis. Militant fundamentalism has made this type of criticism its specialty. As a consequence, that movement has steadily lost its influence, forfeited its credibility, and fragmented into tiny, warring factions. My appeal for discernment is not a call to that sort of factious attitude.

As a person who used to be a captive of conspiracy theories and even wrote a lot of nonsense, guilt by association arguments and have used dishonest methods just to make myself look good and my enemies look bad. When I was newly saved, I would confess the sin that I have been into conspiracy theories more than I was into reading the Bible. The Bible has this to say about conspiracy theories:

2 Corinthians 10:5 - Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

While Biblical discernment is called but the conspiracy theory business does not fit into it. It's simple to see how conspiracy theories are in fact distracting us from the truth which is nothing more than a series of sensational and it doesn't really focus on the Bible.

1.) Innuendo or suggesting something negative about something or someone.

Every time they write, they want to make sure people will believe them and they want the other discredited. My only assumption is that they want to look good to why they do these suggestions. Another possibility is in the feeding of people's curiosity and paranoia. As the saying goes, "Curiosity killed the cat." and sad to say, conspiracy theories can turn out like that.

2.) Character assassination is one of the worst methods that people, even Christians can use it which is not ideal for spreading the Gospel.

It can be defined as an attempt to tarnish a person's reputation if possible one may half-truths and manipulation of facts. What's so hypocritical and double-standard is that conspiracy theorists love to assassinate others' characters but get mad when they are the ones assassinated. This is nothing to do with the truth, it's more of trying to settle a grudge as unprofessionally as possible. Even if the person is unsaved, the major concern is telling the person the truth in love rather than continually attacking the person through character assassinations. Such actions may cause Christian leaders to be ineffective in reaching out the lost. As much as sin must be revealed in the person but character assassination is just as wrong as not confronting sin.

3.) Guilt by association is when you decide to judge something as wrong or right based on others' actions when the Bible calls us to judge according to the Word of God.

What I find stupid about this form of argument for example is that they refuse to see certain symbols may have multiple meanings. The range of absurdity of these arguments may vary. One can even accuse an eye clinic of being a member of the Illuminati (because of the eye logo) or saying two persons are Jesuits because the two are doing the peace/victory sign or saying LOL means Lucifer Our Lord or BTW means Beelzebub the Wicked, I even find myself a fool for relying on this logical fallacy. These days, I have really discredited a lot of books and pastors who rely on guilt by association rather than use the Word of God as a standard.

While it's true that being non-confrontational and watering down the message of God is not called for, but again being cheesy and offensive as much as possible isn't going to help either. Both approaches are equally misguided. But as said, by God's grace I forgive anyone who has maligned me and I ask for forgiveness towards people who I have offended.